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How long would society last during a total grid collapse?

practical.engineering

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Re: How long would society last during a total grid collapse?

#271

Post by epistasis »

vxNsr wrote: post #174
baq wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly can’t comprehend how it is possible to support Russia in the US after the Cold War and Putin. I literally have a blank space in my mind when thinking about that.

I agree and my guess is this “support of russia” is really just opposition to sending billions to Ukraine. Some might argue that’s the same thing, but to many on the right it’s not.

I disagree on that, I think they fully support Russia and Putin, meaning at this point in time Russian imperialism, and the money is just an excuse that is palatable.l to the public. These same politicians will praise and push for increases military spending that is two orders of magnitude higher, for no definite strategic purpose. The only reason for them to complain about the money right now is because they are trying to support Russia without saying they are supporting Russia.

Re: How long would society last during a total grid collapse?

#272

Post by NateEag »

xavxav wrote: post #160
throwaway742 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that stood out to me in this video is that he claimed natural gas infrastructure can't run without electricity. It would seem obvious to me that you would have natural gas powered generators capable of sustaining the gas infrastructure.

I think this is what’s usually referred to as a “blackstart capacity”, and normally grid operators pay/ensure that certain operators maintain that capability. The issue is that I imagine that just keeping an idle natural gas generator large enough for your pipeline + shipping terminal + whatever is not a trivial cost.

Also, however people test blackstart capacity for contractual purposes, I doubt it's a rigorous quarterly check of "can we start this up without outside support while the grid's massively overdrawn after a disaster of some kind shut us down in the first place?"

Re: How long would society last during a total grid collapse?

#273

Post by jes5199 »

pmontra wrote: post #190
jes5199 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The densely populated cities are going to be the hardest to transition - but in rural and suburban areas it may already be cheaper to generate and store your own power than to get it from the grid, most of the year

If I have to start generating my power now, with no preparation and a failed grid, I think my only option is logging and burn wood. At least I can cook with that and heat a room.

maybe that’s true today but within five years I bet the economics will have pushed you and your neighbors to install at least some amount of solar and batteries

Re: How long would society last during a total grid collapse?

#274

Post by mmcnl »

epistasis wrote: post #153
snoopy_telex wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm surprised that this article doesn't even mention the ongoing, continual attacks on the civilian Ukrainian electrical grid, in a concerted effort to take it out with thousands of cruise missiles and loitering drones. I would guess that it was an intentional decision to avoid. Grady goes to great lengths to prevent anything political in his videos, and the Ukrainian war happens to be politically charged in Americ…

The Russian war is actually one of the least political things in the US right now, there is great bi-partisan support, and it's hard to imagine anything else that garners such broad support from all but the most fringe of fringe (the left-right red-brown alliance against Ukraine is so tiny that it can barely be found). But it is a very timely issue. Maybe in a couple years, after it's no longer timely, he will dive i…

The tide is shifting. Anti US/globalist sentiments and conservatives are quickly emerging as one group.

Re: How long would society last during a total grid collapse?

#275

Post by mmcnl »

concordDance wrote: post #242
snoopy_telex wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience differs. The right leaning members of my family strongly support Russia and the left leaning strongly support Ukraine. It’s caused a lot of strife in my family. And I don’t think the right folks feel like they’re on the fringe. They do watch a lot of Fox, but they’re not Q folks, afaik at least.

What in particular do they support? Russia invading Ukraine? Russia keeping Crimea? Russia conquering and annexing Ukraine?

All of the above? They feel Russia is a defender of conservative values and has been treated unfairly by NATO and was pressured into a proxy war with the West.

Re: How long would society last during a total grid collapse?

#276

Post by P5fRxh5kUvp2th »

epistasis wrote: post #266
P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure about that? I've seen discussions from a specific professor going back years (long before the actual invasion) talking about the dangers of exactly that. After it happened this specific person (forget his name) then started talking about how it was a consequence of the things he had been talking about for years. You can disagree with the guy, but he's an academic who apparently has an expertise in that a…

Absolute nonsense, Russia will invade what they call "little Russias" because they believe they are superior and that the people in those land belong to them, and that the resources belong to them. NATO has nothing to do with Russia's urge to invade and oppress other cultures, but NATO is a way for such countries to defend themselves. So if a professor claims to have expertise and not understand these basic facts tha…

You mean such as the academic who spent his entire career studying the politics of the area?

Re: How long would society last during a total grid collapse?

#277

Post by nec4b »

snoopy_telex wrote: post #166
epistasis wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Russian war is actually one of the least political things in the US right now, there is great bi-partisan support, and it's hard to imagine anything else that garners such broad support from all but the most fringe of fringe (the left-right red-brown alliance against Ukraine is so tiny that it can barely be found). But it is a very timely issue. Maybe in a couple years, after it's no longer timely, he will dive i…

My experience differs. The right leaning members of my family strongly support Russia and the left leaning strongly support Ukraine. It’s caused a lot of strife in my family. And I don’t think the right folks feel like they’re on the fringe. They do watch a lot of Fox, but they’re not Q folks, afaik at least.

Where I live the Russia supporters are usually the ones wearing T shirts with the sickle and hammer symbols or the Che Guevara images.

Re: How long would society last during a total grid collapse?

#278

Post by drewm1980 »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #131
meitham wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From Iraq, we went from zero power cuts in decades to no power at all within two weeks in the gulf war in 90, as NATO countries attacked all our civilian power stations. Life became horrible but we adapted. In some cases there were fights between people no different than the fights you saw in western countries over toilet rolls during covid, but I wouldn’t say it was a total society collapse. People will always find…

not to sound all propagandist but russia attacking ukraine infra is "bad" but NATO attacking iraq is "collateral damage".

I would posit that the climate and the season matter enough to be a solid moral distinction in this case. Civilian lives depend on gas and electricity in all scenarios, but they depend on them ~much more in a Ukrainian winter.

Re: How long would society last during a total grid collapse?

#279

Post by GaryNumanVevo »

JoshGlazebrook wrote: post #80

After the Texas winter fiasco, we had solar panels + backup battery (40kWh worth) + backup whole home generator installed. Thankfully enphase allows you to go fully off grid so if the grid is down, you can still use your panels & backup battery compared to the Tesla system which does not allow that. The batteries can output up to 15kWh at once so it pretty much is "whole home" backup even if its just the batteries as…

I can't really fathom living in a country where this is necessary. Is all of America's power grid this unreliable to where you'd need 40kWh of batteries just for one house?

We have geothermal + solar, but this seems overkill.

Re: How long would society last during a total grid collapse?

#280

Post by kkfx »

epistasis wrote: post #61

I'm surprised that this article doesn't even mention the ongoing, continual attacks on the civilian Ukrainian electrical grid, in a concerted effort to take it out with thousands of cruise missiles and loitering drones. Perhaps not all countries will be as determined as the Ukrainians are in their constant repairs, but even with half of their generation capability destroyed, and so many substations targeted, the effe…

I suggest a far simpler technique in the modern society: just use a long list of crapware vulnerabilities.

Instead of expensive missiles just use cracked from the factory EVs, smart ovens, boiler, p.v. inverters, ... to simply create peaks loads (both demand and demand drop) and you have crushed the enemy "smart" grid without much effort, physical damage and still having it functional if you want to invade.

Oh, did you see the crappiness level of EVs crapware? The push toward more and more IoT?

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